Internetling

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The Internet has been abuzz about the new, Slim edition of the popular Playstation 3 lately. What especially grabbed my attention was that Sony decided to remove the option to install 3rd party operating systems, which means, no clean Yellow Dog or Debian Linux installs. The aim is, apparently, to “standardise” the OS on the PS3 platform. I suspect this means Yellow Dog are going to lose a financial backer soon and people who want to use the Playstation 3 and its powerful Cell processor (even though it is a restricted virtual environment) as a basic computer are out of luck this time. Bad move, Sony. Oh well, let’s just hope they don’t screw it up with their awesome motion-sensing controller.

It’s been almost a year since I switched to Arch Linux, an elegant and simple Linux distribution. I had a Windows XP install on the other partition. I didn’t like this combination. Felt kind of like shoving the trash under the sofa instead of throwing it into the bin.

It was a love-hate relationship. While I still adore the elegance of Arch Linux, pacman started acting up. After every update, my Wacom tablet ceased to work. Gwibber and pywebkitgtk were almost impossible to set up and I couldn’t rotate my wallpaper correctly (found a script to do this later). I like to (since I’m a pretentious nerd) think of myself as a power user. I don’t mind doing things in the terminal or learning new commands. Sadly, even though I am on vacation, after an update, I’d like to draw with my Wacom tablet in the GIMP. I can repair it, but it takes up to 10 minutes. 10 minutes during which I’d rather be drawing. With a heavy Windows XP setup and a once again broken Arch system, I finally decided it’s time to scrap both.

For what?

The first distribution I ever tried was Ubuntu, in 2005. Ubuntu, at least for me personally, represents the best parts of GNU/Linux in a polished package and while I’ve used PCLinuxOS, Fedora and Knoppix as my main Linux machine, I always came back to Ubuntu. Everytime, switching back to a new and improved Ubuntu was a wonderful experience.

Alas, Ubuntu got a bit old.

I heard about Linux Mint numerous times and even tried out a few releases. The major “selling” point of Mint is its main focus: to provide a ready-to-go, user-friendly desktop. Most readers are probably familiar with the fact that Fedora and Ubuntu, for instance, don’t ship with Flash because of certain licensing issues. Well, Linux Mint does not care about that. The project aims to provide a full, out-of-the-box experience, so you get a distribution with i. e. Flash installed. This is both a pro and con, since you do not have a completely open setup anymore. However, many Linux users are not even aware their Linux distribution ships with other closed-source components, such as the famous binary blobs in the Debian kernel. There are certain distros like Gnewsense who use strictly Free Software, though arguably , most of the popular distros all contain proprietary components. So, if we’re going to have to worry about it anyway, why not use a leaner distribution?

Mint is built on Ubuntu. As a consequence, upgrading to a new version of Mint will bring you new Ubuntu features. Alongside the basic Ubuntu setup and some proprietary components, Mint also ships with some different applications and front-ends, which you can see in the gallery. Here are some notable ones.

1. Gnome Do, my favorite launcher application (that also features a Dock) and a must-install for most power users.

2. The good-looking, but unnecessary mintInstall (how many APT GUI do we need anyway). A nice feature is the rating system, even though I believe something similar already exists in the Ubuntu installer. Synaptic does the job much better, can now download screenshots, and is also easy enough to use.

3. The Compiz Config Manager, which is absent in Ubuntu. Good idea to tweak Compiz settings if you’re running it.

4. The excellent MintUpdater, an update manager that sorts updates by “safety”. Depending on the reliability of the package, the updates (originally pushed for Ubuntu) are ranked from 1 (Certified working updates) to 5 (most unstable).

5. Gufw. It is basically a GUI for the Ubuntu Firewall. Sadly, it has very few options. I’d at least like to have the option to get asked whether to allow Internet access when an application requests it. Or is that not the Linux way?

5. Giver. Allows you to easily share files with other users you can see on the network. Yes, this is the most creative description I could come up with.

6. MintBackup. Helps you backup your home directory. Most people who do backups will probably use other applications. Despite this, it might come in handy.

7. APTonCD. This tool allows you to backup your downloaded packages to a CD/DVD. Something like a backup of your installed applications. You can later insert this CD and restore what you backed up.

8. Mozilla Thunderbird instead of Evolution. Hell yeah.

9. SCIM (life-saver for a Japanese learner like me) and Mint Nanny, a rudimentary lock-down app.

10. The Control Panel – just a GUI with all the configuration front ends neatly grouped and sorted by category.

You might notice in the screenshots that Linux Mint does not use the regular GNOME menu, instead they decided to go wtih the SLAB menu, an advanced GUI used primarily in OpenSuse. Some might not like it, I’m still making up my mind. It is nice to have a Search feature for menu items and a Favorites Section. The main downside to SLAB in my opinion is its rather large size. See the screen grabs and decide for yourself, I’m personally sticking with it for the moment.

All in all, Linux Mint 7 is going to be my main machine from now on, at least until I get my claws on another unsuspecting distribution. It is a distribution I spent very little time customizing and I have a pretty specific setup. Flash was there, Gnome Do was there, the GNOME bar was already on the bottom of the screen, I liked the icon theme. Linux Mint is the Ubuntu cake with some extra-delicious icing. The icing doesn’t make it slow, just better. Way better than vanilla Ubuntu. So, if you chose Ubuntu because it does most of the things for you, take Mint for a spin. It does everything, you can just sit back, relax and have a few evil laughs in your secret control tower. Minty fresh.

Get Linux Mint here

There’s also a KDE4 version!

I am a big fan of light desktop environments. Well, most people looking for a lighter alternative normally settle for a lightweight window manager, such as Fluxbox or AwesomeWM.

When the new version of Knoppix came out earlier this year, it caught my attention that the project dumped KDE3 for LXDE, an environment I’ve only heard about and never seen used in a distribution as the default desktop. During the test, I was surprised to find out the lead programmer was, and still is, Hong Jen Yee a.k.a. “PCMan” , the author of my favorite file manager PCManFM. That is why I couldn’t wait to take LXDE for a spin, since I knew it was going to be an interesting ride.

On my first login, the system greeted me with an error message, claiming it couldn’t detect my GTK+ icon theme correctly. I ignored it and continued loading the desktop. LXDE managed to find another GTK+ icon theme so the initial desktop looked pretty attractive. The LXDE logo seems to be a swallow. If any good graphic designers are out there, LXDE needs your help. Even though the swallow logo looks shiny in the task bar, the same swallow completely ruins the desktop background. Well, maybe it’s just me being a spoiled little brat, take a look at the screen grabs and decide for yourself.

Apart from the swallow detail, the lower panel reminds me of GNOME. The task bar looked similar, though I’m not a big fan of the CPU usage graphs, they’re just so 90′s… still, considering how fast the environment is, it is a small price to pay. As most complete desktops, LXDE is build around a set of apps. There is a Preferences Manager, a terminal emulator called lxterminal, an image viewer (gpicview), PCManFM which acts as the default file manager and manages the desktop and the icons, and the  lxappearance GTK+ theme manager (which I couldn’t find in the menus).

And now for the most amusing part. Do you remember those Windows Plus! Themes, bundled with retail copies of Windows 98 SE? Well, LXDE followed KDE4′s path and also decided to include those annoying OHGODPLEASESTOPICANTTAKEITAANYMORE desktop sounds. I know it is intended to help visually impaired users and for the initial “wow”-factor, but I suggest that this feature be turned off by default and to add an easily locatable option to turn it on if you really need it. Did I mention I couldn’t find the option to turn it off? Well, I guess I probably couldn’t find it, although a menu called “Desktop Settings” should include this, in my opinion. Finally, a thumbs up for including an LXDE package that is made specially for Asus Eee PCs, I believe netbook users will get the most of this desktop environment.

In conclusion, LXDE still needs some polishing. I have no doubt that PCMan will work hard to make it an excellent desktop, but at the moment, there is still lots and lots of room for improvement. If you are looking for a lightweight desktop environment, be sure to give LXDE a try. Maybe you’ll find it useful.

Please note: the LXDE packages I used for testing come from the community-supported Arch Linux repositories.

Image by iquto.com

Hey Internetling readers, it’s that time again. The time to think about how happy you are that you use Linux and that nothing is being shoved in your face.

Due to a complaint by the EU not long ago, Microsoft was left with two choices: to either leave out the browser altogether, or let the users choose between several browsers. Well, according to Gizmodo:

The new approach is to sell Windows PCs with Internet Explorer as the default browser, but to present users with a “ballot screen” which allows them to select and “easily install competing browsers from the Web.”

The problem is that nobody knows the specifics. What browsers will they choose for the “ballot screen”? Will the ballot screen feature a list of differences between browser features and, most importantly, user rights?

Will Microsoft choose the so-called competing browsers? I do not see how this will be fair. They may choose them by market share, although Opera, for instance,  has as much rights to be on the list as Firefox, Chrome or Safari. Why? Because it offers a full user experience and is a modern browser. Why not K-Meleon, why not Maxthon? Will they deliberately choose a few unfinished, bare-bones browser projects  in order to confuse the user’s perspective on what the competition can offer?

I sense a great disturbance in the Force. And you?

I was initially reluctant to write a post about Chrome OS, seeing as  Engadget and the other heavy machinery immediately posted murky “details” about Google’s new lightweight operating system, even though everyone fully knew that any screenshots and technical data were most likely fake (as a side-note, I find Gizmodo’s “deep reading” Chrome OS article quite amusing).

It’s actually pretty cool, the shiny announcement and all, but where is the point of Chrome OS?
And why the heck is it named exactly like the Google browser? As if things weren’t confusing enough for new users already. The article basically describes Android on a netbook. How are they going to revolutionize computing? According to the description, all Chrome OS will be is a WebKit-based browser running on a Linux kernel, which is less than Android.

Tons of articles have been published about vendors like Dell successfully testing Android on different netbooks. You can even download a liveCD an try it out yourself.

OK, for the sake of argument, let’s suppose they are building something new. Let’s suppose it will be something revolutionary.

From the announcement:

Speed, simplicity and security are the key aspects of Google Chrome OS. We’re designing the OS to be fast and lightweight, to start up and get you onto the web in a few seconds.

Android. It is Linux based and boots almost instantly.

Google Chrome running within a new windowing system on top of a Linux kernel.

Android again. It has a WebKit-based browser, what Chrome basically is.

The only clear difference between the two in the announcement is that Chrome OS will be designed to run on netbooks and desktop machines, while Android is a mobile operating system that can run on netbooks. I am not a programmer, but what kind of a browser are they going to build that cannot be run by Android on a desktop machine? The biggest part will surely be Google Gears and WebKit. Since the kernel will be Linux and the whole OS open source (if they release it a promised), the whole solution seems highly impractical. Why build two when it is obviously possible to accomplish everything with Android?

Finally, despite everything I have written I am very excited to see what Google will do with Chrome OS. They probably do not want to ruin the surprise, hence the all-words-and-no-facts announcement. As a Linux geek, I am glad to see such a big company working with hardware manufacturers to bring Linux to the masses, because it will broaden the availability of Linux-supported hardware, so if I don’t like Chrome OS, I will be able to simply slap on any other netbook Linux distro.

Can’t wait for 2010!